The mountain path leading away from the Five Element Sect was silent, save for the crunch of dry leaves under Lin Chen's boots. Using the Phantom Void Step, he moved with a fluid grace that left no trail. He had discarded his sect robes, now dressed in simple gray linen, his expression a mask of cold stone.
A sudden whistle of an arrow sliced through the air.
Lin Chen tilted his head an inch, letting the arrow thud into a tree. From the thickets, a dozen bandits emerged. He swept his Spiritual Sense over them instantly: most were in the Body Building stage, but the leader and two subordinates radiated the pressure of the Qi Refining realm.
"Leave your belongings, kid!" the leader snarled, hefting a heavy blade. He was at the 6th stage of Qi Refining, while his two lackeys were at the 3rd stage.
Lin Chen didn't waste words. As the bandits lunged, his iron sword left its scabbard in a blur. He moved like a shadow, his blade finding vitals with surgical precision. The Body Building lackeys didn't even see the flash before their throats were opened. The two 3rd-stage Qi Refining bandits tried to mount a defense, but Lin Chen's Void-Shattering Palm crushed their chest plates like paper.
Within a breath, only the leader remained. Terrified, the man swung his broadsword, but Lin Chen caught the blade with two fingers. With a snap, the steel shattered.
"Wait! I have—"
Lin Chen's palm silenced him forever.
He stood amidst the fallen and focused. According to the Heaven-Devouring Scripture, a Spiritual Root was intrinsically tied to the "Breath of Life." Once the body turned cold and the blood stopped flowing, the root would dissolve back into the world's essence, becoming impossible to harvest. He had to act while the warmth remained.
He scanned the bodies with his Spiritual Sense. "Mortal grade... 4th-grade Mortal... garbage." His sense stopped on the leader, whose chest was still warm. "5th-grade Earth Root."
Lin Chen knelt and placed his hand over the leader's heart. His Devouring Spiritual Roots hummed with a dark, predatory hunger.
Following the mantras of the Scripture, he visualized the root's essence—a vibrant, brown energy. Before the body could lose its heat, he gave a sharp mental tug. The essence was pulled into his palm and integrated into his own soul, solidifying his foundation as a 5th-grade Earth Root talent.
Once the extraction was complete, Lin Chen looted their storage bags. He found 2,000 gold coins and 50 low-grade spirit stones. With a flick of his fingers, he incinerated the remains to ash and vanished.
Lin Chen knew staying near the Five Element Sect was a death sentence. He traveled for days until he reached the border city of Grey-Port, home to a hidden Cross-Border Teleportation Array.
"To the Northern Domain," Lin Chen said, his voice flat. He handed over nearly all the spirit stones he had just looted.
The array guardian didn't ask questions, but his smile was cryptic. Cross-border teleportation was notoriously unstable; it didn't offer a pinpoint destination but rather a random drop somewhere within the chosen domain's vast borders.
Space distorted, and with a thunderous hum, Lin Chen was pulled through a vacuum. The sensation was like being shredded and stitched back together a thousand times.
Far away in the Northern Domain, the sky suddenly rippled over a massive, snow-covered mountain range. A streak of dark light erupted from the rift, plummeting downward. Lin Chen felt the wind roaring past him, his vision blurring as the freezing air of the North bit at his skin.
With a bone-shattering thud, he crashed through the canopy of a frost-laden forest, snapping branches like twigs before slamming into a deep drift of snow.
Lin Chen lay still for a moment, his breath hitching in the sub-zero air. His head throbbed and his vision spun violently, his stomach churning with an intense nausea and dizziness caused by the sheer turbulence of his first-ever cross-border teleportation